2014年3月24日月曜日

Jewish Creational Monotheism: BW3's Take on PFG

I'm lately blogging somehow about monotheism and high christology by way of introducing PFG review articles.

This morning I found in BW3's blog yet another post discussing the topic from PFG.

But first, this is what BW3 thinks the important argument for monotheism in PFG:
Those who wish to argue that Christianity is not a monotheistic religion will have to come to grips with Tom Wright’s recent massive tome entitled Paul and the Faithfulness of God particularly the first major section in Part Two where he discusses early Jewish and early Christian monotheism at great length (over 150 pages worth).
and he goes on to make, basically, 2 key points.

1. The Israelites monotheistic affirmation is NOT about its internal nature but about affirming their God, YHWH, the only one god who made the universe, against polytheisms (esp. "any and all forms of dualism") of their surrounding nations.

2. This, in Wright's word, "creational monotheism," is the framework in which we should understand what Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus believed about his deity. So
...Jesus was never seen as a second deity alongside of God the Father, or a human or an angel promoted to divine glory by means of the resurrection. He was on the Creator side of the ledger when the universe was made says John 1, and he made the universe with God the Father...
So my question is exactly when was Jesus firmly established as with the One God of the universe, YHWH, by the early followers?

Historically speaking, depending on the synoptic gospels, Jesus was held by the disciples, first as the eschatological prophet (mighty in words and deeds), and then (or at the same time) the Messiah, and finally as the Messiah and Lord (co-equal with the Creator God) after Easter, though there was a brief period of loss of faith between the death and the post-Easter appearances.

And my next question is exactly when and how was this Jesus-included creational monotheism "traditioned" by the first followers?

Is the brief summary gospel statement in I Corinthians predicated on the creational monotheistic framework? And since that already-presupposed monotheistic framework came to be in need of explicit expression later when the gospel message was brought to the Gentile world with less and less Jewish biblical background, was the Trinitarian formula (or its near equivalent) surfaced on the scene as in the Apostle's Creed?

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